MUSIC | Records – Jazz & World ALSO RELEASED
LEE RANALDO AND THE DUST Last Night On Earth (Matador) ●●●●● Lee Ranaldo’s second ‘solo’ release since Sonic Youth’s abrupt hiatus in 2011 is a much more explorative and varied experience compared to his predecessor Between the Time and The Tides, but still boasts Ranaldo’s uniquely skewed ear for melody. Split into four ‘sides’ with no track shorter than five minutes, Last Night On Earth is an album to sit down to and get lost in. Verging from warm Americana- influenced driving songs to cerebral psychedelic jams, sometimes even in the space of a single song, LNOE is a brand new trip while still sounding uniquely dreamy and uniquely Ranaldo.
SAINT MAX AND THE FANATICS Saint Max Is Missing And The Fanatics Are Dead (Armellodie) ●●●●●
On their debut album, the sickeningly young and talented Saint Max and The Fanatics never overcook their fleshed-out horn-led sound and use it not as an aesthetic gimmick, but to drive home their already solid, driving rhythms and frantic fanatical narratives being spewed out by the confident and stylish Saint Max himself. Tying together the best of sardonic British indie, punk and ska from decades past with buckets of original hummable melody, swagger and sunshine, this is a promising and satisfying first ray of light from some bright young things worth letting into your life.
WHITE DENIM Corsicana Lemonade (Downtown) ●●●●●
White Denim’s latest offering is cut from the same oil-soaked motor-city-mad rags that they’ve clearly been huffing for years, but it’s difficult to resist the ballsy stomp of opener ‘At Night in Dreams’ which calls to mind the urgency of classic Kiss. Their quest for sublime grooves and slick fuzz takes them through a cavalcade of dextrous riffs and righteous jams, with the likes of the eponymous ‘Corsicana Lemonade’ and ‘Come Back’ simply begging to be heard screaming from a passing Cadillac as it scorches down some classic American highway.
ULRICH SCHNAUSS & MARK PETERS Tomorrow Is Another Day’ (Bureau) ●●●●● Tomorrow is Another Day is the second collaborative release between electronic artist Ulrich Schnauss and instrumentalist Mark Peters. In this collection they mine spacey 80s electronic landscapes and dust them with organic instrumental sounds such as piano, bass, guitar and voice to produce a sublimely ambient yet vibrant and communicative body of work that, although certainly reads from the pages of the Boards of Canada handbook, is confidently a unique product of these two diverse musical personalities. A wistful reflective trip into the outer reaches, TIAD makes for perfect solo listening. (Ryan Drever)
86 THE LIST 17 Oct–14 Nov 2013
JAZZ & WORLD JAZZ MATANA ROBERTS Coin Coin Chapter Two: Mississippi Moonchile (Constellation) ●●●●●
Mississippi Moonchile, the second chapter in alto saxophonist Matana Roberts’ visionary exploration of African-American history and culture, is perhaps less immediately startling than its eclectic big-band predecessor, yet the scope of the material that her crack New York jazz quintet plays is no less ambitious, with Roberts sewing folk song, spoken word and even opera into a patchwork she calls ‘panoramic sound quilting’. The formal register
of Jeremiah Abiah’s operatic tenor contrasts beautifully with Roberts’ bluesy tones and the band’s fluid mastery of jazz, folk and avant-garde idioms. Roberts weaves folk and gospel quotations around spoken-word sections where she juxtaposes her grandmother’s warm, chatty recollections of a Mississippi childhood with a harrowing account of racist policing from civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer. There is anger and pain here, but also a great sense of hope and redemption, as underlined by the gorgeous finale of gospel hymn ‘In the Garden’. (Stewart Smith) JAZZ VANDEWEYER, VAN HOVE, LOVENS, BLUME Quat: Live at Hasselt (No Business) ●●●●●
At times this album sounds like a late-night session from Glasgow’s Sharmanka Gallery, where Eduard Bersudky’s magic-realist kinetic sculptures have come to life and are improvising a cabaret soundtrack. It’s most apparent when pianist Fred Van Hove wields his accordion, exhaling Kurt Weill chords as the three percussionists hiss, clank, rattle and scrape. A vibraphone/piano/percussion affair, Quat are suggestive of the Modern Jazz Quartet filtered through the radical sensibilities of European free improvisation. Young Belgian vibraphonist Els Vandeweyer takes her instrument’s cool, spacey sound into strange new worlds, conjuring gaseous alien tones around the veteran Van Hove’s trembling piano clusters. It’s not all Milky Way dreaminess, however. There are driving passages where Van Hove’s piano canters alongside a skittering hi-hat and metal-on-metal cymbal slices, before it all falls away leaving Vandeweyer’s floating tones. Inquisitive and inspired music from a singular quartet. (Stewart Smith)
WORLD TAMIKREST Chatma (Glitterbeat) ●●●●●
Chatma, the third album from the young Tuaraeg band Tamikrest, is certainly a confident affair. 'Tisnant an Chatna' is strong opener, with its cyclical guitar riff, loping groove and the striking vocal melodies and ululations of female singer Wonou Walet Sidati. But hark! What is this sound which offends my ears? Why, it's new guitarist Paul Salvagnac's slick blues licks. His sub-Clapton interjections are mercifully brief, but they
are symptomatic of the classic rock vibes which occasionally veer Chatma towards Jools Holland territory. That said, Tamikrest have plenty of fire in their bellies, and the terrific 'Imanin bas Zihoun' choogles along like a Saharan Creedence Clearwater Revival. 'Itous' deftly fuses the Tuareg camel-clop rhythm with a reggae stepper beat, aided in no small part by Cheik Ag Tigly's supple bass. 'Assikal's' Pink Floyd-inspired atmospherics are a little portentous, but Tamikrest's willingness to experiment bodes well for the future. (Stewart Smith)
WORLD WILLIAM ONYEABOR World Psychedelic Classics 5: Who Is William Onyeabor? (Luaka Bop) ●●●●● Who indeed? After self-releasing eight albums between 1978 and 1985, Nigerian musician Onyeabor became a born-again Christian, refusing to speak about his funky past. Thanks to David Byrne's Luaka Bop, Onyeabor's eccentric funk and electro gems are a collector's secret no longer. An early adaptor of new technologies, Onyeabor laces tracks with squelchy analogue synths and spaced-out electronics. This reaches its apotheosis on the astonishing 'Good Name'. Onyeabor grafts Kraftwerkian robo-riffs onto a severely funky machine beat. The oddball music is matched by equally curious lyrics. 'One day you'll be lying dead!' he warns on the eerie 'Something You Will Never Forget' while 'Fantastic Man' sees Onyeabor strut in a white disco suit, as females coo 'You look so good!'. Wigged-out funky magic. (Stewart Smith)